Paradox
by nitilia
Summary: Atsushi tries to figure out what Dazai's problem is, and fails at every stage.


Sometimes, he finds Dazai scratching at his arms.

By now he's got used to his mentor's moodswings (to an extent), but he's yet to find a _reason_ for them. Atsushi issort of satisfied with Tanizaki's explanation _("He's been driven crazy by the mafia, that's all")_ and has to admit that Kunikida's theory has merit _("It's his way of being ten times more annoying than he could be otherwise")_ , but. But.

There must be a reason Ranpo-san refuses to comment, after all.

Honestly, Atsushi doesn't have all that much time to worry about Dazai, what with the fate of Yokohama being at stake every two minutes. But when he _is_ free, when all he has to do is file papers at the agency or buy Ranpo-san candy...

...he sometimes sees Dazai, unusually quiet, frowning at his screen and scratching at his arms. His bandages are dirty and loose, and he's glaring at them with that annoyed, disgusted look that he usually reserves for Nakahara Chuuya.

* * *

It's ridiculously hot today.

Atsushi is panting hard when he reaches the agency after his lunch break, wiping sweat from his brow. His hand comes off sticky, sweaty, and disgusting.

The heat has taken its toll on everyone else in the agency as well. Tanizaki and Naomi are snapping at each other instead of flirting (which is a welcome change), Kenji is asleep, Kunikida looks torn between taking off his overcoat and maintaining his ideal, and, as Atsushi watches, Ranpo picks up a waterbottle and empties the entire thing on his head.

Of course, it pours onto the floor as well, and Kunikida twitches violently, now torn between his respect for Ranpo and the mess on the floor.

"Hello," Atsushi mumbles as he shuts the door behind him. Everyone ignores him.

That's when he realizes that Dazai is missing.

"Um, Haruno-san," he starts, because she's the only person who doesn't seem ready to kill someone at the moment, "Where's Dazai-san?"

Haruno looks up from her computer briefly. "Bathroom, I think."

"Oh, okay." He shuffles towards his own desk, making sure to tip-toe carefully around Kunikida. When he's safely in his seat he breathes a sigh of relief. He flips through the papers on his desk, wincing at the sweat that his touch lands on them, tempted to just call it a day, go home, and sleep in the bath.

An hour of paperwork later, the heat becomes too much. He can actually feel his skin peeling off, and a part of him deliriously wonders if turning into a tiger might help him now.

"Ehhhhhh..." he grumbles, falling face flat on the table.

Tanizaki looks at him sympathetically. "Try washing your face."

Atsushi nods and gets up, dragging himself towards the bathroom. To his surprise, the door is locked. Dazai was still inside?

"Dazai-san? Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, Atsushi-kuuun!" The voice sings from inside, slightly muffled by the door. "Just a bit of constipation!"

But Atsushi can hear the rasp in his voice, and the unmistakeable sound of scratching.

"DAZAI!" Kunikida screams, finally getting someone to scream at. "Stop hiding from your paperwork and get back in here!"

"Awwww, Kunikida-kun..."

Kunikida's paperweight flies from the other end of the room, narrowly missing Atsushi's head and crashing into the bathroom door. Surprisingly, Dazai shuts up.

It takes him only a minute to come out, and when he does, wearing a grin that makes Kunikida launch another paperweight at him, Atsushi notices that his bandages are wet.

And, if he looks closesly, he can see the slightest bit of red starting to spread like ink.

* * *

Atsushi had lived in an orphanage. People seldom forget this, because the internal angst it caused him springs up unwanted with alarming regularity. Atsushi had lived in an orphanage - one with limited funds and a freaking crazy headmaster.

He has seen the worst of sickness, the worst of hygiene, and, regarding the point, the worst of rashes.

So he has no doubts about it – whatever reason Dazai may have had to bandage himself up, right now he just has a lot of rashes.

Which is what brought Atsushi here, to the local department store, nervously fisting the money in his pocket and eyeing the strange bottles.

"Olive oil," he mumbles to himself. "They said olive oil was good...but also vinegar? Olive oil or vinegar? I think baking soda worked too, but vinegar is cheaper..."

He is gaining weird looks from the people around him, making him fret even more. He should have just asked Dazai. Dazai probably even _had_ this stuff already. At the very least, he should have brought Kyouka with him...maybe she'd have known what to do...

"Atsushi-kun?"

"D- Dazai-san?"

Dazai smiles at him cheerfully. "What are you up to around here?"

He is holding a basket of groceries, and Atsushi is thrown for a second by the fact that Dazai even _buys_ groceries. He's dressed in a casual shirt and pants, and the idea that his mentor wears something other than work clothes, and does something as normal as _buying groceries_ gives Atsushi a mild existential crisis.

He can't resist peeking into the basket. What he finds is tinned crab meat, a bunch of apples, rice, and what look like the ingredients for curry.

"Dazai-san, you know how to cook?" Somehow he can't imagine Dazai doing so without burning down the apartment.

"You wound me, Atsushi-kun. I'm a great cook! I just never have the time for it."

(Atsushi can hear Kunikida's trusty voice sniggering in his head: _"Yes, because you're so busy doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ALL DAY.")_

"Is there something you wanted to buy?" Dazai asks him, hefting the basket in his arms. His smile doesn't waver.

"Oh. Um." Atsushi sweatdrops. "Well. Maybe?"

Dazai raises his eyebrows. He looks innocent enough, but Atsushi knows that he's going through every possible reason for Atsushi to be here, probably complete with statistics and probabilities and maybe a diagram of Atsushi's brain.

"It's not what you think!" Atsushi insists, having no clue _what_ Dazai thinks. "I just thought...I thought you had rashes!"

Apparently of all the things that Dazai had thought, _that_ was not one of them. His smile is slowly falling, but not quite, and there is still cheer in his voice when he asks, "Hm?"

"Because...you're always scratching your arms, so I thought you had rashes?"

For a brief second, so brief that Atsushi can't be sure he saw it, Dazai looks like he's going to be sick. But then he's back again, grinning and patting Atsushi on the head, telling him, "I don't have rashes, you fool, and even if I did, need I remind you that you're almost bankrupt?"

The word _bankrupt_ cuts through Atsushi like it always does, and he sulks all the way out of the store and back to their apartments, before he starts remembering Dazai's expression, when he mentioned him scratching his arms, with vivid clarity.

* * *

The next morning, there's curry on his table and no signs of a break in, and it's a mark of how long he's been at the agency that that doesn't bother him at all.

* * *

It's a late night at the agency.

Atsushi is working overtime, writing a report on his most recent brawl with Akutagawa, but mostly he's there because Kunikida told him to keep an eye on Dazai so that he atleast finishes his paperwork before jumping out the window. (Yes, that is a thing his mentor does, Atsushi is not making it up).

Kunikida himself is in Fukuzawa's office, discussing matters that sail right over Atsushi's head.

Dazai, for his part, is doing no work at all. His head is on his desk, and he's humming what sound like Christmas carols as he plays with a matchbox in one hand. Atsushi really wishes someone else had to watch over him instead, because he isn't the kind of person who can boss Dazai around. Yosano, for example, would do a spectacular job.

Kunikida walks into the room just then, looking tired and worn. When he sees Dazai, Atsushi winces, but it appears Kunikida is too tired to reprimand him, because he just sighs. "You aren't leaving until you finish, you idiot."

Dazai hums in response, still playing with the matchbox.

Atsushi looks at them uncomfortably. "Kunikida-san, can I leave?"

Kunikida nods at him. "You need your rest." He turns back to Dazai, glaring at him furiously. "If _you_ leave before you finish I'll have your pay cut for the next year."

Dazai grumbles something incoherant, looking irritated, but his cheek remains plastered to his desk. Kunikida gestures Atsushi out of the room and follows him out, locking the door behind him. Like locked doors work against Dazai.

* * *

It's four AM and he still hasn't heard Dazai's footsteps go by his door.

Atsushi doesn't know why he's so bothered. There have been days – weeks, even – when Dazai didn't come home at night, instead getting drunk at a bar or drowned in a river or kidnapped by the mafia. This time Atsushi even knows where he is – safe at the Agency. Fukuzawa may even still be there.

He tells himself this for hours together, but he keeps imagining Dazai sitting in the room alone, scratching his arms, brows furrowed in irritation. And if not rashes, then what, then, could it be?

At four fifteen he damns it all to hell and gets up (quietly, so as to not wake Kyouka), washes his face, puts on a decent pair of clothes and stalks over to the Agency himself.

The door is still locked. He isn't sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. He digs out his key and unlocks it as quietly as he can, though he's not sure why.

There are no lights on inside. The room is pitch dark.

"Dazai-san?" he calls nervously, heart hammering in his chest. There's no response. Fearing the worst (Dazai _did_ have a tendency to jump out the window), Atsushi fumbles for the light switch and flicks it on.

Dazai is in the exact place they had left him, face still on his desk, playing with the matchbox. He winces at the light, squinting in Atsushi's direction. Once he recognizes him he sits up.

"Atsushi-kun? Up so early?"

Atsushi isn't sure if he's relieved at the lack of blood on scene, or even more worried.

Now that he's accustomed to the light, Atsushi can see that his mentor's eyes are much wider than they usually are. It's Dazai's way of coping with lack of sleep – he's seen it too often during long missions.

"I, um, I couldn't sleep?" Atsushi says lamely.

"Hmm. Me too. But that's more because of this report." Dazai gestures towards his laptop. "It's finished now, but at what cost?" He looks at the ceiling in mock dismay.

Atsushi doesn't doubt that it took him less than fifteen minutes to finish it. For all the rest of the time, it appears, the man had simply sat in the same position and played with a matchbox.

Atsushi sighs heavily. He'll never understand Dazai, ever. He slumps down in his own desk, leaning back and staring up at the ceiling.

Dazai looks for a moment like he feels he should say something, just to keep the mood light. But then he reconsiders and lies back down on the table. "You left the light on," he grumbles.

"Dazai-san, you weren't even sleeping."

"And now I can't even tryyy."

Atsushi sighs again, standing up to turn the light off.

* * *

Atsushi wakes up at his desk when Kunikida storms in at 8:00 a.m. He's hungry, sore, and in need of a bath. As he straightens up he realizes that Dazai's coat was draped over him.

He looks to the side, and finds Dazai's seat empty.

* * *

It's hard to look away from Dazai while he's at it.

For the rest of the members of the Agency it seems to be the exact opposite. When Dazai goes quiet, and the frustrated scratching starts, they all avert their eyes. It's one of those things that reminds Atsushi that no matter how long he's been at the Agency it's been nowhere near long enough, because he still isn't used to these things enough to overlook them.

Today is another unbearably hot day. Atsushi wipes sweat off his forehead for the umpteenth time.

Dazai glares at his laptop, almost absently tearing at the skin under his bandages. Kunikida looks up occassionally, snaps at him to concentrate, and goes back to work. Atsushi, for his part, is getting almost nothing done.

He isn't stupid. He knows where Dazai has come from, and what a messy place it was. If he isn't hiding scars he'd gotten in the mafia, he's hiding scars from his suicide attempts. It's as simple as that.

What Atsushi _doesn't_ understand is, if they irritate him so much, why won't he ever take them off?

It isn't like people at the Agency haven't seen the absolute worst of injury. Atsushi could have two bullets through his stomach, a foot in the wrong direction, and vomit all over the floor, and Tanizaki would still painstakingly carry him back to the Agency, without even panicking. If Dazai were to occassionaly take off his bandages, no one would mind in the slightest.

Kunikida is frowning now, watching Dazai steadily. He places both palms on the table and pushes himself up, then turns and heads down the hall towards the President's office.

About five minutes later, the President himself stands before Dazai's desk, staring down at him. Dazai looks surprised.

"Dazai," the man says, somewhat cautiously. "There are no missions today. You can take your paperwork to your dorm and return when you see fit."

Dazai looks over Fukuzawa's shoulder to Kunikida, who is looking in the opposite direction. Then he shuts his laptop and stands, gathering his things. "Of course, President," he says.

The rest of the Agency watches curiously.

"Can I go home, too?" Ranpo tries. Fukuzawa shakes his head and walks right back to his office.

* * *

When Atsushi follows Kunikida to the dorm that night, he sees something interesting.

As they walk by Dazai's room, Kunikida stops and pulls a stack of paperwork out of his bag. He knocks a couple of times on the door and then drops the stack through the mail slot.

"Oi, Dazai!" he shouts.

There's a series of crashes inside, then Atsushi hears someone running to the door, but it doesn't open. "More paperwork? Seriously?" the muffled voice comes from inside.

"That's what you get when you save it all till the last day," Kunikida says. To both his and Atsushi's surprise, a different stack of papers falls back through the mail slot.

Kunikida stares at it hard. He tilts it in the light. He probably would have examined it with a microscope had he had one nearby. "You actually finished this report," he says, amazed.

Dazai sounds a bit annoyed. "Don't be so surprised."

But Kunikida is, and he remains in a confused sort of daze all the way to his room.

* * *

Atsushi doesn't see Dazai for the rest of the week. There are no missions for him, and at the end of each day Kunikida dumps his share of paperwork in through the mail slot, listens for sounds of life, and then heads back to his own room. Atsushi has no clue what his mentor does each day. He figures that he probably just works with his bandages taken off.

On one such day the paperwork that Kunikida throws in shoots out right back at him.

Kunikida is frozen for a second before he growls and shoves it back in. Atsushi hears an imaginary bell gong and sees a " _Round 1"_ flash in the air.

Dazai shoves the papers out again.

Kunikida shoves them in.

Dazai shoves them out.

Atsushi sweatdrops.

Kunikida screams bloody murder and threatens to break the door down, but Dazai is unfazed. Atsushi can actually hear laughter from inside now, and if the steam blowing off of Kunikida's head is any indication, so can he.

Atsushi leaves them to it and heads to his room for the night. Kyouka is already there.

"What's the noise?" she asks, only mildly curious.

"Dazai-san and Kunikida-san are fighitng over paperwork."

Kyouka's eyes widen. "He came out of his room?"

Atsushi actually feels embarassed for his seniors. "No, they're fighting through the mail slot."

* * *

The peace breaks two days later.

Ranpo-san has just solved a series of murders, and his paperwork is honestly a mess. Kunikida hasn't technically been told to fix it, but of course he's doing it anyway. When Atsushi leaves for the day the man is still nose deep in his work, rubbing the bridge of his nose like he was praying for self control.

If Dazai was here, this is where he would have snatched Kunikida's glasses and made the situation ten times worse, Atsushi thinks, and he can't decide if that thought is more fond or more relieved at his absence.

Some part of him finds Dazai's absence uncomfortable. The Agency is weird and silent without him, almost like a real Agency. It's sort of unnerving. But at the same time they've gotten so much work done this week.

He walks back to his room alone – Kyouka leaves before him and, by the looks of it, Kunikida won't go home till the next year – and as he walks by Dazai's door he's struck by a weird urge to shove food through the mail slot, because he doesn't think the man has come out to buy any new groceries or been to a cafe all week. But that would probably be insulting, so he walks past to his own room. He and Kyouka have a quick, quiet dinner, and then they drift off to sleep.

He's woken up by Kunikida's furious knocking on Dazai's door.

"Dazai, if you don't open the door right now I swear I'll - "

Atsushi rubs the sleep out of his eyes and goes outside to see what the commotion is about.

Kunikida doesn't stop knocking. He looks angrier by the second. But he doesn't have any paperwork in his hands, so Atsushi knows that Dazai hasn't thrown anything at him. What, then, was the problem?"

"If I come in and find you hanging from the ceiling - "

Atsushi shakes himself awake. "Kunikida-san, what happened?"

Kunikida doesn't spare him a glance. "The idiot isn't saying anything,"

His knocking grows louder, and he opens his mouth to shout again, when suddenly, abruptly, the door opens.

It's the first time Atsushi's seen Dazai in more than a week. The man isn't wearing his usual coat - he's in a t-shirt and has hastily pulled on some kind of sweater over it. His eyes are bloodshot, his hair is a mess, and he glares at Kunikida with only half effort. He seems to be supporting himself on the doorframe.

"I was trying to _sleep,_ Kunikida-kun," he says, irritated. He sounds tired.

Kunikida glares at him. "You're sick, aren't you," he says flatly.

Dazai just shrugs. He seems to notice Atsushi then, and he smiles at him halfheartedly. "Long time no see, Atsushi-kun!"

Atsushi just stares at them both awkwardly.

"Did you even _eat?"_ Kunikida asks, incredulous. Dazai shrugs again.

Kunikida looks even more fed up than he did back at the Agency. "Of course you were too lazy to even take care of yourself," he says, rubbing his eyes under his glasses. "The President had said you could stay home till the end of summer, but I'll ask him to bring you back tomorrow."

Dazai looks insulted. "I don't _want_ to come back tomorrow."

"You don't have a _choice."_

"It's too _hot,_ Kunikida-kun."

"Then maybe you should learn to take care of yourself, or _take the bandages off."_

Something unreadable passes over Dazai's face, and Kunikida looks almost apologetic, but then he steels himself and turns around. "Go eat something," he says, as he leaves.

Atsushi stays put, unsure of what to say.

Dazai is definitely sick. His grip on the doorframe is too tight, like he's trying so hard not to fall. His hair looks like he hasn't washed it since the last time Atsushi saw him. And he's too pale, too unsteady, and his gaze doesn't quite focus on anything.

Apparently this was what happened when you left Dazai on his own for too long. Atsushi feels sick, but he pushes the feeling away to deal with later. "We have some soup left over?" he says.

Dazai slowly lifts his gaze to look at him. He smiles a bit. "I'm not really hungry, Atsushi-kun."

Atsushi wishes for the thousandth time that he was better at bullying his mentor. "I'll get the soup just in case," he says, heading back to his own room. He can feel Dazai watching him till he disappears inside.

He reheats the soup quietly (Kyouka sleeps through anything, really) and pours it into a bowl, then heads back to his mentor's room. The door is shut but unlocked, so he lets himself in.

Dazai is slumped on the ground in front of the television, his back against the feet of the couch, absently switching the channels. In his other hand he holds the matchbox that Atsushi sees so frequently. When he sees Atsushi he gestures for him to sit next to him. Atsushi carefully places the bowl in front of him and Dazai eyes it with distaste.

Atsushi chances a look around the room. Old bandages are dumped unceremoniously in a corner. So many empty alcohol bottles are strewn about. He thinks he sees blood stains on some parts of the floor. The kitchen is barren, except for empty mugs and used packets of instant coffee powder on the counter.

He feels sick again.

Dazai finally settles for some sappy soap opera on TV. "You should go sleep, Atsushi-kun," he says tiredly.

Atsushi nods. "I"ll leave once you finish," he says. "I should wash the bowl after." It's a stupid excuse to get Dazai to eat it, and if Dazai had been feeling slightly better he probably would have tricked Atsushi into leaving and taking his soup with him before Atsushi even realized. But instead he pulls the bowl closer to himself and picks up the spoon. He takes a small mouthful.

It takes him more than half an hour to finish, unused to anything besides alcohol and coffee. Atsushi politely keeps his eyes on the TV as the man struggles through his food. When he's done, Atsushi hands him some tablets that he'd found in his own medicine cabinet (Kunikida empties Dazai's frequently because he doesn't trust him with drugs). "It'll make you feel better," he says.

"I'm indebted to my own subordinate," Dazai muses, pocketing the tablets. Atsushi picks up the bowl (which still has a bit of soup left, but he'll let him get away with that) and shuts the door behind him when he leaves.

* * *

As it turns out Dazai is too sick to turn up at the Agency the next day, and neither he nor Kunikida is very surprised. Kunikida, the bearer of the news, had let himself into the man's room in the morning to get him to eat something (Dazai hadn't bothered locking the door) and had found him curled up with a high fever.

Yosano goes over to see him in the afternoon ("He's lucky he didn't die of alcohol poisoning," is her only comment on the matter), and everyone is sure Dazai will recover if only not to see her again the next day. Sure enough, the next day Dazai is back, bandages and coat and all, a bit tired and a bit unsteady, but with a grin as wide as ever.

"Welcome back," almost everyone says.

"Dazai! Have some candy!" Ranpo-san says, throwing some expired, inedible packets in his direction.

"Don't slack off," Kunikida says.

Apparently Dazai holds some sort of grudge against Kunikida for making him come back, because he makes an even bigger nuisance of himself than usual.

But things seem normal again, and Atsushi lets out a private sigh of relief.

Later, the temperature spikes and he looks at Dazai nervously, but the inevitable scratching doesn't happen. Whether he's self conscious or has just stopped, Atsushi isn't sure.

* * *

"He could be hiding tattoos," Tanizaki says wisely.

Kyouka shakes her head. "Tattoos aren't common in the higher ranks of the mafia," she says, which is a polite way of saying that it's more common among the stupid ones. Dazai isn't stupid, they all agree on that.

"It's definitely just wounds," Atsushi says. "But why would he hide them?"

They share a moment of silence as they walk down the street.

"Maybe he's ashamed," Tanizaki says.

"But we all _know_ what's underneath," Atsushi points out.

"We _think_ we do. Maybe we don't. And even if it is just wounds, and even if we know that they're there, it's not the kind of thing that you'd parade out in public, is it?"

"No, but not even when it annoys him so much?"

Tanizaki shakes his head. "It's weakness. He doesn't like weakness, you know that."

"Being _suicidal_ isn't a weakness?" Atsushi asks, but the words are empty, because he sort of gets it. Dazai has never presented his suicidal tendencies as a weakness. His failure to achieve something he's so hellbent on, is probably a different story.

When they reach the dorms, Dazai is coming down the stairs, and they each look in a different direction to symbolize that they weren't talking about him, at all.

Dazai pauses on the stairs and raises an eyebrow. "I do hope you said something flattering," he says, amused.

Tanizaki nods. Atsushi looks sheepish. Kyouka just stares.

Dazai sighs.

"Dazai-san?" Tanizaki starts, like he's going to ask something revolutionary. Atsushi holds his breath.

"Hm?"

Tanizaki looks awkward. "...nothing."

* * *

The scratching doesn't stop, Atsushi finds out, but Dazai is more careful about not being seen. He disappears more often, enters and exits the Agency as he pleases, and when he reappears his bandages are always a bit more loose, and sometimes Atsushi can see traces of blood. He can't overlook it like his colleagues, not yet, but he's understood that this will continue to happen at least until the end of summer.

When he and Kyouka are walking past stores (she holding a crepe, he holding his freaking depressing wallet), a display in a window catches his eye. It's a high collared, long sleeved shirt, much like the ones Dazai usually wears but covering even more skin.

"He could just wear longer sleeves," Atsushi realizes, and realizes that if he could realize this Dazai certainly could have too.

Kyouka, who has probably heard more than enough rambling about Dazai in this past week, instantly knows what he's talking about. "He must have considered that."

"Could he be so paranoid that his sleeves might go up?" Atsushi wonders, just about fed up with all this wondering.

Kyouka ignores him in favour of her treat.

He does't understand, and that bothers him. He knows Dazai is messed up and needs serious help and is a master at making them forget that, but there are too many of these tiny things that Atsushi just doesn't get.

What is with the bandages.

What is with the matchbox.

If he is as smart as Atsushi knows he is, _why hasn't he killed himself yet._

He doesn't doubt that Dazai wants to die. The man he'd seen the previous week, running purely on alcohol and caffeine, wasn't someone who cared about his life. He wasn't above killing himself with neglect if nothing else.

Atsushi groans and rubs his head.

"Why would someone as smart as he is, who desperately wants to die, not be able to kill himself?" Atsushi asks aloud, hoping Kyouka would help him get somewhere.

Kyouka shrugs. "Maybe he wants to throw us off his trail," she says.

"Huh?"

"Once none of us believe that he'll kill himself no one will interfere when he finally does it."

Atsushi pauses, stricken. "That...is a very disturbing theory." He doesn't think that's it, not really, but it's disturbing nonetheless.

* * *

Once in a while, Kunikida gets on their tails and orders them all to clean out their rooms. This is Atsushi's least favourite part of being in the ADA, all life-and-death situations included.

His own room is never particularly messy. He owns practically nothing that wasn't given to him for free, and Kyouka is similar. So all they have to do is sweep and mop the floors, scrub any and all surfaces, and they'll be able to escape Kunikida's wrath.

While Kyouka is filling a bucket of water, Dazai turns up at their door. "Atsushi-kun, I need your help," he says.

Atsushi shakes his head rapidly. "No, no, no, I am not cleaning your room again."

"I'll pay you!"

The bait of money is almost enough to lure him in, but...he shakes his head again, faster than before. "No, no, no." He isn't going to fall for this again. Dazai's room could not be cleaned. It's as as simple as that.

"I'll pay you twice as much as last time. And treat you to tea on rice," Dazai says, sounding desperate.

Atsushi considers that. It's a good offer, he has to admit. It's _almost_ enough to make him agree...

"Thrice as much," Dazai sighs.

Atsushi's eyes sparkle. "Deal."

He tells Kyouka where he's going, and follows Dazai out of his room, mop still in hand. The man is wearing an old T-shirt with questionable stains on it, probably from attempting to clean his room. Atsushi is suddenly reminded why he hates this job.

"Please don't tell me the carpet is stained again," Atsushi groans, already knowing that it is. He'd seen it himself a couple of weeks ago, when Dazai had been sick.

Dazai smiles apologetically, turning the door knob. "On the bright side, you get to practically empty my wallet."

Atsushi steps into the room and feels his stomach sink.

The place is way worse than it was last time. He isn't sure how Dazai managed to spill food on the _ceiling_ of all things.

"I might have accidentally tossed the pancakes too high," Dazai confesses, a bit embarassed.

There's a mess of paint pooled near one wall.

"I tried to make a self portrait and got distracted."

There are bits of shattered glass lodged in the carpet and blood stains in assorted places, that Dazai just laughs airily at because they both know what they are.

"Dazai-san, can I let myself out of the deal?" he asks weakly.

"Nope."

Atsushi sighs heavily.

They start by throwing out the trash. It turns up everywhere – under Dazai's bed, behind the TV, inside the kitchen cabinets – it looks like every time Kunikida came into his room Dazai simply grabbed whatever was nearby and crammed it into the nearest open space. There are _way_ too many alcohol bottles, tins and forgotten boxes of takeout that had never been eaten (with fungus and bugs and what not), and Atsushi quietly throws out two bottles of expired tablets that he finds under Dazai's pillow when the man isn't looking.

Then they tackle the floor. Atsushi finds two pairs of gloves and they put them on, somehow managing to scrape together the bits of shattered glass into a large disposable pile.

It's the blood that Atsushi is worried about. It's going to take them years.

In the end it doesn't take them years, but it takes them the rest of the day and every detergent that they can find. By the end they're both in a pretty foul mood, and they lie down flat in the middle of the room, staring up at the ceiling. The room is quiet. Their cleaning tools are piled up near the door. Both of them are covered in sweat and they sort of stink, but Atsushi doesn't feel like ever getting up.

"We didn't clean the ceiling," he realizes.

"Kunikida-kun won't look that high up," Dazai says. His eyes are closed and he's humming softly. Atsushi's sure he'll fall asleep in a few minutes.

"Dazai-san," he starts quietly, because there's no better time to ask this than after scrubbing blood off the floors, "Why aren't you dead?"

"...that's rude, Atsushi-kun. I thought we were friends."

"...sorry, I didn't mean it like that. I mean...if you want to die that much, why haven't you succeeded?"

There's silence for a while, and Atsushi almost thinks that Dazai's asleep. "I suppose it's fate," the man says at last.

"Really?" Atsushi asks skeptically. He doesn't want to turn and see Dazai's expression.

Dazai is quiet again. "Perhaps," he says, and Atsushi can tell that he doesn't want to discuss it further.

There are so many things he wants to ask, but he can't imagine ever getting a straight answer. He can already feel the man closing off, distancing himself.

"It doesn't make sense," Atsushi says, more to himself than to Dazai. Dazai seems to have fallen asleep, right there on the floor. He doesn't know how long he stays there, staring at the destroyed remnants of pancakes on Dazai's ceiling, with the man next to him finally passed out from exhaustion.

Much later, there's a knock on the door and Kunikida steps in. His eyes widen slightly at how clean the place is, then he sees Atsushi and his face drops.

"He got you to clean again, didn't he."

Atsushi shrugs. "He's paying me for it, and also he helped a lot."

Kunikida sighs, shutting the door behind him. He kicks Dazai with a foot. "Oi. Wake up."

Dazai groans. Kunikida kicks him again.

"What do you waaaant."

"Don't sleep on the floor, idiot."

Dazai groans in irritation again, but on the third kick he sits up, scowling. His eyes are too clear, with no haze of sleep, and Atsushi realizes, somewhat betrayed, that he'd been feigning sleep the entire time.

* * *

It's raining like hell.

Kenji has his face pressed against the glass, eyes shining as he watches the storm. Ranpo is scowling at his desk, pissed that he'll have to walk through puddles. Kunikida, unperturbed by trivial issues like weather, continues typing determinedly.

Dazai hasn't showed up today. Wherever he's gone, he wouldn't have taken an umbrella, Atsushi knows. It doesn't matter – he's smart enough to find shelter. Probably.

Atsushi flips a page. He kind of wants to join Kenji, but he also wants to be considered a diligent worker.

About five minutes later he joins the other boy anyway, pressing his face against the glass.

The rain doesn't stop even hours later. Tanizaki manages to dig up some umbrellas in the storage room, and they all huddle together under the umbrellas, trying to avoid puddles as they walk home. When they make it to the dorms he sees that Dazai's room is locked from the outside. Kunikida notices it too, and he immediately pulls out his phone and tries to call the man.

"He won't pick up," Kunikida says, not sounding very surprised.

Atsushi frowns.

He can't shake off the feeling that something is wrong for the rest of the day. He keeps listening for footsteps that never come. Well past midnight, when he still can't sleep, he picks up his umbrella and quietly slips out of the house.

The sound of the rain is deafening once he steps outside. The umbrella does little to keep him dry - by the time he's made it down the stairs and onto the street he's already half soaked. The street lights are barely lit. It's cold and dark, and Atsushi is terrified that he's going to get lost somewhere, but he's even more scared that Dazai is somewhere in this mess, all alone.

He doesn't even know where to look. For all he knows, his mentor is already drowining in the river.

He pulls out his phone and dials Ranpo's number. It seems to ring forever. Finally, a voice he can barely make out over the storm says, _"It's freaking 1:00AM."_

"Ranpo-san, where's Dazai-san?"

" _How the hell should I know."_

"Please, I'm sure you can figure it out!"

There's no reply for a while. Atsushi hopes that Ranpo is thinking. Just when he's starting to think the man fell asleep, _"He'll be at the cemetry near the ocean."_

The cemetry? "Alright, thank you!"

" _This is stupid. He can take care of himself,"_ Ranpo says, irritated, before hanging up on him.

Atsushi spares a moment to stare at the screen in shock. He stuffs his phone back in his pocket and takes off in what he hopes is the direction of the ocean.

He can sort of understand where Ranpo is coming from. Dazai is indestructible. He may breakdown in private, jump off buildings, scratch his arms till they bleed, but eventually he'll pull himself together and function just fine. And it's because of this - because they all know that Dazai will never stay down - that they brush his antics off in the first place.

He splashes through puddles and nearly slips once as he keeps running.

But the fact that Dazai will be fine soon doesn't mean that it's okay that he isn't now, Atushi thinks.

The cemetry isn't far from the ocean. Atsushi had been there only once before, when a mission had failed and Kunikida had taken him along to pay respects to the victim. It had been a horrible experience.

What was Dazai doing there alone, so late at night?

The beach sand is soggy and impossible to run through. When he reaches the road again, he stops. The cemetry isn't large - he should be able to see Dazai from here. He raises his umbrella and squints through the darkness. There's a silhouette about a hundred meters away, hunched in front of a gravestone.

"Dazai-san!" he calls, worried, making towards the figure. It's hard to hear himself over the wind, but he keeps calling out until he reaches the man.

His mentor doesn't even look at him. He's sitting cross legged on the ground, completely soaked. His gaze is empty, unseeing. If he wasn't shivering Atsushi would have thought he was dead.

"Dazai-san?" he says again, trying not to panic. He kneels down on the ground next to him, reaching out. Dazai doesn't react even when he shakes him. Completely terrified, Atsushi doesn't really think when he lets go of the man's shoulders and hugs him instead.

It takes a while, but Atsushi can feel Dazai moving (he can hear his heart beat, which is more than enough) and then there's a hand running through his hair, almost as if Dazai was trying to console him. It sort of makes Atsushi want to cry.

"Atsushi-kun," the man says at last. His voice is tired, hoarse, but he's put aside whatever horrible trance he'd been in for now. "Do you believe in hell?"

Atsushi isn't sure if he heard that right. "What?"

"Do you believe there's a hell?"

Atsushi shakes his head, not looking up at his mentor. He doesn't believe in hell simply because he doesn't want to – back when he was in the orphanage, the possibility of eternal punishment _after_ a life of abuse was too much for him to handle.

"I think it exists," Dazai says, more to himself than to Atsushi. He seems completely oblivious to the pouring rain. "Where else would people like us go?"

He looks so hopeless, so completely lost. Atsushi is jerked back to the realization that he has to get them both home, fast.

"There's no saving us," Dazai says. The rain dripping down his face look almost like tears. "It was too late to switch sides. There's no saving us."

"Dazai-san, we should go back," Atsushi says, worried. He moves to get up, but Dazai stays where he is.

"We're not human," he says, sounding the slightest bit manic. Atsushi can't tell who he's including as _we,_ because he doesn't seem to be talking to Atsushi anymore."We're trapped. It won't just _end_ for us."

He pulls the man to his feet. Dazai's hands are freezing. "Let's go home," Atsushi says, trying to keep his voice from shaking.

* * *

He doesn't see Dazai for the next two days. It's been established that Kunikida is the only one who can deal with him when he's sick, so they leave the man to it. Even though he hasn't seen him, Dazai is constantly on his mind.

He can't make sense of what the man said that night, in the graveyard.

 _It won't just end for us._

He almost asks Tanizaki, but this seems too private. Too fragile. He asks Kyouka instead, because maybe, as an ex-mafioso, she can relate.

"Do you think...maybe he feels like he doesn't deserve to die? Like he still has to atone for something?"

Kyouka doesn't say anything. She looks a bit haunted, and Atsushi can tell that she agrees with everything that Dazai had said, every word of it.

They both sit in silence watching the sunset. The trauma of being in the mafia isn't something Atsushi can ever grasp.

He doesn't mention that night to Dazai, and Dazai never brings it up. When he's over his sickness he bursts into Atsushi's room, completely uninvited, and hands him a bowl of curry.

"I had some left over, so here you go!"

They've all long since accepted that 'left over' curry just keeps appearing when Dazai sees fit.

"Do you feel better?" Atsushi asks. In spite of sleeping for two days Dazai still looks tired, and his voice is raspy.

Dazai smiles. "I'm still here, aren't I?" he says, and it's almost funny how he can still say that and smile when they all know he doesn't want to be.

* * *

"Maybe he thinks we'll hate him for it," is Tanizaki's declaration during their Dazai Discussion of the Day,

"Hate him for what?" Atsushi asks, barely even listening. He's sort of given up on these discussions.

"His weaknesses."

"...why would he think that?"

"Oh, come on, like you've never felt like someone would hate you if they found out a weakness of yours."

Atsushi nods solemnly.

"Maybe he thinks wanting to die is a weakness, so he fails at it, but then he thinks the failure is a weakness, so he tries to kill himself again, but that's a weakness, so he fails, and so on."

Atsushi groans. Tanizaki is only making his head ache worse. "That's messed up," he says, forgetting to whisper.

"Dazai-san is messed up," Tanizaki says, just as loudly.

"I'm flattered, Tanizaki-kun," Dazai calls from his desk, where he seems to be constructing a catapult of sorts with all of his stationary.

Tanizaki looks sheepish.

Unfortunately, Atsushi has to admit, Tanizaki's messed up theory really _is_ as messed up as Dazai is and might even be true. He still wouldn't bet on it, though.

They frown, staring at their desks. Kyouka has long since ditched them.

Atsushi doesn't think he'll ever figure Dazai out. The man is completely impossible, way too contradictory, and probably won't open up even if they tortured him to. But that doesn't change the fact that Atsushi wants to _help_ him. He wants to protect the man who had quite literally saved his life.

It doesn't matter if he doesn't understand him - he'll try his best to watch over him.

Dazai launches his catapult at Kunikida and Kunikida screams bloody murder. Atsushi's thoughts dissolve as Dazai laughs hysterically.

* * *

 **.**

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 **I think I was more confused than Atsushi when I wrote this.**

 **In the first few pages of the Dark Era light novel, Dazai says something like, success is harder than failure for most things, and so he should aim for attempted suicide and not suicide itself, because it should be easier to fail at the former than at the latter. I think that's the closest he's ever got to an explanation. This man is seriously a mess.**

 **Reviews are appreciated!**


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